


Fire & Flowers

by boogiewrites



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alfie Solomons AU, Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Mental Illness, Mentions of threats of suicide, PTSD, Painting, Peaky Blinder AU, Recovery, Slow Burn, Two messes who need each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 13:06:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17961101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boogiewrites/pseuds/boogiewrites
Summary: An Alfie Solomons AU after WW1 where he used art/painting as a means to deal with his substantial mental, emotional and physical trauma from the war. We start with a struggling artist Margot at the end of her rope, where she fatefully meets Alfie, the town recluse and gossiped to be a mad man. Margot finds only an awkward and quiet, but kind and troubled man who can paint things that are so beautiful she can barely believe they can come from such a sad mind.These two find the missing support they've needed in their lives as they learn to let someone else in despite how broken and defeated they might feel. A story about mental illness, the journey of recovery with its ups and downs, friendship, love, and comebacks.





	Fire & Flowers

The tiny, infested apartment could hardly be called that at all. It was more like a glorified closet. But on an unemployed writer's earnings it was the best she could do. Margot looks in the dirty and cracked mirror above her bathroom sink that could go by the same description. The tiny room, the lip of the tub practically touching the toilet and the sink shoved in awkwardly that blocked the door from fully opening was starting to feel suffocating in the heavy air from her morning bath. The steam was frizzing her long spiral curls of orange hair. Her green eyes almost grey against her ghostly white skin. Her slender fingers run through her hair and down her face distorting her small feminine features. She sits her hands on the swell of her hips of her short frame, trying to stick her chest out and straighten her posture and conjure up a smile to face the world again. Somehow. 

She exits to the main room, kitchen to one side, a small table with uneven legs, a chair by the window and a small uncomfortable bed shoved into the corner. The floor was loud as she stepped to the chair to sit and put on her shoes. After lacing her boots, she sits back, a heavy sigh as she looks out the window and down into the small seaside village. She'd been here for months now, only after begging the local paper to let her help when they needed it, which they rarely did, was she able to afford this shabby and depressing flat. She'd sold nearly everything she owned, chasing her dream of being a journalist. She wanted to write about the war, what it did to the country, how people were dealing with the aftershocks it sent across the land. But it seemed no one was interested in the opinion of an American woman on such things. She looks down to her engagement ring, glinting in the morning light as she tapped her fingers on the edge of the worn chair arm. It was all she had left that was worth anything. She was late on her rent already, and was out to comb the village for any work that could bring her enough money to even eat today. 

She thinks of the fiance she left behind to pursue the dream career she wanted. She wanted to be someone, someone that people wanted to hear what they had to say. What she hadn't expected was to be met with complete disinterest and rudeness on her arrival to London. She lost job after job, her pieces just not clicking with the audience of the papers. She found it too expensive to live there eventually and found herself pushed from city to town to now tiny village by the seaside and this was where her journey ended she feared. This had been her last resort, she'd went from declaring she would only write hard-hitting stories, things that mattered and changed the world to writing fluff pieces, to advertisements to now nothing at all. She had failed and in the dim light of the cold winter morning she was coming to terms with this being the end of her dreams.

As she wandered the streets, a smile to everyone, polite nods and moving in on any attention given to her to ask if they needed any help, or any job openings and as always, the answer was no. The follow-up question of do you know of anything that does? Is met with another flat no. By the end of the day she's exhausted. She'd worn out her welcome and the toe on one of her boots as it starts to rain. At least her tears wouldn't be visible as she cried on the way home, she thought. 

She lights up at the presence of mail in the slot of her door, making the mistake to pause to grab it before opening the door and quickly getting inside. Her landlord heard her come in, and now he demanded his payment. 

She explains she doesn't have it, that she's spent all day trying to find work, any work from what she wanted with writing to manual labor and she'd come up empty. Again. 

He tells her it isn't his problem, he's running a business not a charity. As all of her stressors, her depression and anxiety hit her at once, she makes the bold move to suggest she pay for her rent some other way. She say no other way to keep a roof over her head, and she'd be homeless and having to sleep with people for money to get back to America and her fiance anyway, a great shame she'd have to hide forever upon her return but otherwise she was stuck in a foreign country with no means of survival in the dead of winter. She very surely wouldn't live through it any other way. The landlord is of course appalled, shouting and making a scene, being sure every neighbor in the building knew what she's just tried to pull, the paper thin walls surely wouldn't keep her slaggish behavior unknown to anyone with ears now. He tells her he wants her out by the end of the week, even if she had the money.

Slumping against the door, clutching the letter to her chest she starts to sob. Oh what a life this turned out to be. WIping her eyes with her dress, she finds the name of her fiance on the envelope and the last remaining shred of hope in her flares. She ruses to the small table and sits, eagerly ripping open the letter and shaking as she reads it. But alas...there would be no good news at all today. 

In her prolonged absense her fiance had found someone else. The letter was written, and stated to be nothing but a formality to let her know by the time it reached her that he'd be married to someone else. She'd been gone too long and with no success to be heard of, he found it better to find someone with no ambitions of her own than to be with a failure an ocean away. Her heart sits in her churning guts, the tears come and the escape her eyes, the sobs forced out violently from her lips as her torso convulsed with the loss of everything she had. 

The sobs continue, and still as body racking as ever. She notices the shine of the ring on her finger, and gags. She had nothing. No one. No family to go back to. No friends anymore, none had written her back in ages, not wanting to hear about her hardships. And hardships were all that she had.  
The sun is setting, and it would be lovely and crips if the cold didn't make her cheeks sting as she ran as fast as she could out of the village. No one stopped her, the small, delirious red-headed woman running with everything in her away from civilization and to the cliffs. Not even screaming and crying and clear distress turned anyone's head. She's reminded again that no one cares. 

She pushes through the dead tall grass and the carcasses of flowers. The sun is setting as she reaches the cliffside. She feels the salty spray from the ocean, hears it's vicious roaring as it pummels the jagged rocks below the soft grassy plane the abruptly ends into a dark and sharp drop into nothing but certain death for anyone who dared to jump. And she was daring to jump.  
\--------

He's washing his teacup in the upstairs bathroom of the cozy ivy-covered cottage, grumbling to himself. 

"Bloody cheap paint." he groans, fingers jagged and picking at the flecks of stuck paint on the cup. 

The landscape surrounding his house he was intimately familiar with. Having painted it more times than he could count. Every flower, every creature and in every season he knew it. So the appearance of what at first looked to be a fire on the cliff's edge caught his attention. He peers out the window. Making a disgruntled noise before rubbing the glass to clean it with his paint-stained sleeve before narrowing his eyes and trying again. There was certainly something out there and he makes his way out his front door to get a better look.

There was a woman on the cliff side. One he thought he might've seen in the village before, but he wasn't for certain. He would certainly recall hair like that he thought. She looked like a flame come to life. He could see the subtle yellows, oranges, reds and pink hues blowing in the wind from the sea. Her blue dress whipped about her small body like a flag battered and worn after a battle in the war. Something he'd seen many times while he served. He starts to walk towards her, she's nothing but a soft blur at first. A dreamy impressionist painting, like something he'd create until he gets closer, making her real. At least he wasn't hallucinating a again. He felt relief at first as he heard her scream and cry, but then as he saw how she was standing so close to the cliff's edge and the relief quickly turned to worry. 

"Oh great! Just what I fucking need." she spits through tears, noticing the man approach her. He was broad shouldered, wearing clothes that were just slightly dated, basic dark pants and light shirt. A vest emphasizing wide but hunched shoulders as he almost waddled towards her. His gate wasn't sure, his eyes weren't meeting hers, but he seemed to be studying her. "Go away!" she shouts, a hand pushing him away even though he wasn't close enough to reach. 

"Do you need...help?" he asks with an uncertain break in his voice. She looks at his face and recognizes him from the village. He was one they all ignored too. He talked to himself, a crazy man, a recluse and known to shout and throw things on occasion. His face and hands were blotches with red and scaly flesh, his face set in a permanent low brow that wasn't welcoming to anyone. Everything about the man said stay away. 

"Great. Sympathy from the village monster." she barks, sobs starting again. 

He doesn't say anything, merely frowns and stands next to her, the ground crunching under his feet but he seemed calm. "I've stood here a lot you know." he says with a single nod, staring out into the horizon. "Been looking for something...a sign to jump myself." his voice was so even and calm her eyes widen in fear at him. "If you're going to do it, I'll do it with you." he says with a nod, holding out his hand. 

"You..uh-...what?" she stutters, her breathing erratic as she takes a step back from the edge, not even thinking about it. 

"You're planning on jumpin' yeah?" he says gruffly, face half turning to see her behind him, her face red and swollen and twisted in agony. 

"Yeah." she tries to take a deep breath and coughs, taking a timid step forward. "I have nothing. I have no one. No hopes or even dreams anymore, there's no reason to stay here. I'm going to kill myself."

"Well if you go...I go." he says again. 

"Wh-why? You...you don't have anything to do with this! Go away!" she starts to sob with her entire body again. 

"Nah. Most days I want to die too. Seems good a time as any." he shakes his head. 

"This isn't about YOU!" the tears keep coming, losing her voice from the shrill squeal of her lamenting into the brisk air. "I have nowhere to live! I couldn't even fuck my landlord to stay and now everyone thinks I'm a prostitute." her lips blubber and spit dribbles over her lips. "No one will hire me for anything. I can even get hired on a farm because I'm a woman. The only thing I ever wanted..." she lets out a strangled cry that makes her cough and choke and gasp through the realization and the words. "I wanted to write. To be important. For someone ANYONE to give a shit about me and how I saw the world!" it's like she's screaming into the vast and beautiful sunset now and he lets her go. "But no one gives a SHIT! I haven't eaten in days, my only pair of shoes are now broken, I have no way to mend my two dresses I have left and they're all too big now from starving for so long and I look a fucking mess and no one will hire me because they think I'm Irish but I'm not I'm American! I don't even sound FUCKING IRISH!" she stomps her feet, her hands balled into fists that hit at nothing as she bends and screams like a banshee over the moors in his direction. "I'm a FAILURE! I can't do the ONE THING I always wanted to." the sobs break her down, her hands to her knees as she gasps and tries to speak, her words come out covered in spit and snot and tears. "Now my fiance left me, he's already married and left me here in this fucking country to die." her voice lowers, but the sobs are more violent, her back hunching, the choking more often now. "I have no family." she draws out in a howl, finally falling to her knees. "I have nothing. No one. I'm better off dead." she means the words, he feels it because he's known the feeling before. He wasn't lying about jumping if she did. He'd screamed into the void of the ocean almost as often as he'd painted it. Depression, failure, shame, and isolation were things that made up his life as well. He understood where she came from all too well. 

As he sits and thinks to himself, letting her work her problems out, he hears her choking again. He turns, watching her struggle to breathe. Her breathing is too erratic, her heart rate too fast, her face pales and he knows she's going to work herself up so much she passed out. But he lets her. She looks at him with big bright green eyes. Like a perfect summer field, the bloodshot capillaries around them making the color contrast to obvious he's slightly enchanted in his own morbid way with them. He sees a spark there still, in the moment before they flutter, and start to roll back as he elbows buckle and she passes out he knows she's fighting to live. 

She slumps against the ground and he kneels next to her. He checks her pulse and it's there, he hears her breathing and he let's out a long sigh, looking out across the field before he hoists her up into his arms and carries her back to his house.  
\----  
She's soaked to the bone, but so was he. Her body seemed so frail as he rested it in a spare room on the bed. He builds a fire, chewing his lip as he stands over her, deciding what to do next. He goes and changes quickly, grabbing clothes of his own, a robe and blankets back to her. 

His hands hover over her body before he touches her. He didn't recall the last time he'd touched a woman. He didn't want her to be angry with him for undressing her but he knew she might get sick if he didn't. So he finds a happy medium and takes her dress off, laying it over a chair by the fire where she can see it upon waking. He leaves her undergarments on, putting a jumper and some sleep pants of his on her, before finishing it off with a robe. He tucks her into the covers and looks her over. 

She's a lovely little bird, he thought. Certainly not stable, and more certainly going through something of her own. Her hair was a color study all on its own. He was mesmerized by it really, his fingers itching to paint it, his mind telling him the same. But that was his usual compulsion with things he found aesthetically pleasing. Her skin was pale and almost translucent, the blue veins underneath visible down her neck, the circles under her eyes a shade of purple, unlike the grey of his own. Thick lashes fanned out under arched red brows, a button nose and pale lips above a rounded little chin. She'd make a lovely portrait he thought. Get her in the right light, in a green dress to match those emerald eyes and work with that fiery hair. 

But those were thoughts for another day maybe. He'd have to see how she was after she woke up. From what she'd spewed about herself on the cliff's he thought she might be out for some time. He goes and makes tea just in case, leaving it by her on the nightstand. Her checks her pulse and breathing again, her skin now warm and both her heart and lungs steady and even. He refrains from pushing the tendrils that have fallen as they've started to dry from her face, that would be far too intimate a thing to do he concludes with a heavy brow, there was no purpose to help her by running his calloused, stained and scaled hands over her soft and smooth face. No need to taint the poor girl even more than she felt she already was. He pulls the door to, leaving his down the hall open as well so if she were to wake he could hear. But even as his lids grow heavy well into the night, she still hasn't stirred. He feeds her fire one last time, her having turned to her side and snuggled in deep to the bed at some point. He sees her face less pained and it helps calm him enough to find sleep on his own accord for the night.


End file.
